Background
Gerena was born to José Félix Gerena and Basilia Rivera in the town of Loíza, Puerto Rico and raised in Barrio Cubuy, Río Grande.
Gerena was born to José Félix Gerena and Basilia Rivera in the town of Loíza, Puerto Rico and raised in Barrio Cubuy, Río Grande.
Rivera is the oldest documented woman and second oldest ever verified person born in Puerto Rico and the oldest ever resident of Florida. She had 9 children. She was of Canarian ancestry. Antonia Gerena Rivera comes from a long lived family.
In all, she had eight children, two of them survived her (Carmen and Fe) and has 27 surviving grandchildren.
She moved to Florida in the 1980s. Her family said that the family genes and regular brandy drinking until she was 110 were the reasons for her longevity.
Her family described her as a "strong and working woman". She holds the record for being the oldest Puerto Rican-born woman ever, and second-oldest person behind Emiliano Mercado Delegate Toro (1891 – 2007), and also holds the record for being Florida"s oldest resident ever, surpassing Matthew Beard’s age of 114 years, 222 days, set in 1985 (Carrie C White"s claim to 116 in 1991 was later retracted when a subsequent investigation cast doubt upon her age).
She died on June 2, 2015 at the age of 115 years, 14 days as the then world"s fifth-oldest person (In fact, she was in sixth place because an anonymous Japanese woman, born 15 March 1900, was certified afterwards) and the third-oldest in the United States.
